World Cup of Dining in Toronto part 1: Bosnia

It’s the Cevapi that makes this legit.

Last Sunday I awoke with an idea – try the cuisine of each of the 32 nations participating in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Do a weekly draw,  invite friends, and go somewhere in Toronto even if it’s out of the way. Get to all of them by the World Cup final in July.

This gonzo blend of organization and randomness has happily put me in Siberia in wintertime, and singing karaoke with Filipino sailors mid-Pacific. Since most of the world is in Toronto, I though why not?

Today I went west to Etobicoke, home to our now infamous mayor. Having drawn Bosnia to kick off this adventure, I tried and failed to find a “Bosnian” establishment. Instead, I settled on a small Serbian restaurant on Bloor at Islington, hoping food culture would succeed where politics had failed in Yugoslavia. Which brings me back to Cevapi.IMG_00000161

Wikipedia tells us Cevapi is a common dish of the Balkans – minced meat served with bread, beans, coleslaw and chopped onions. There are surely variants across the region but the common origin in Persian. The waitress recommended it and I can attest that it is the stick-to-the-ribs meal that makes you want to take a nap afterwards on a winter Sunday. After the Cevapi, she served me a yummy (and complimentary) crepe filled with plum jam and dusted with ground walnuts.

I ate alone, my invitees having had to cancel. Which meant I was the only person the server spoke English to. The music was slavic warbling, the other diners – one elderly and two middle-aged couples, and two moms with their kids, all spoke Serbian. The children, when they weren’t absorbed by their iObjects, spoke the mother tongue to their parents, but English to each other. A classic Toronto immigrant story.

 

 

 


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